Ten years of Windows XP: how longevity became a curse

Ten years ago today, Windows XP hit the retail market. After a rocky start, it …

Windows XP's retail release was October 25, 2001, ten years ago today. Though no longer readily available to buy, it continues to cast a long shadow over the PC industry: even now, a slim majority of desktop users are still using the operating system.

Windows XP didn't boast exciting new features or radical changes, but it was nonetheless a pivotal moment in Microsoft's history. It was Microsoft's first mass-market operating system in the Windows NT family. It was also Microsoft's first consumer operating system that offered true protected memory, preemptive multitasking, multiprocessor support, and multiuser security.

The transition to pure 32-bit, modern operating systems was a slow and painful one. Though Windows NT 3.1 hit the market in 1993, its hardware demands and software incompatibility made it a niche operating system. Windows 3.1 and 3.11 both introduced small amounts of 32-bit code, and the Windows 95 family was a complex hybrid of 16-bit and 32-bit code. It wasn't until Windows XP that Windows NT was both compatible enough—most applications having been updated to use Microsoft's Win32 API—and sufficiently light on resources.

In the history of PC operating systems, Windows XP stands alone. Even Windows 95, though a landmark at its release, was a distant memory by 2005. No previous PC operating system has demonstrated such longevity, and it's unlikely that any future operating system will. Nor is its market share dominance ever likely to be replicated; at its peak, Windows XP was used by more than 80 percent of desktop users.

The success was remarkable for an operating system whose reception was initially quite muted. In the wake of the September 11th attacks, the media blitz that Microsoft planned for the operating system was toned down; instead of arriving with great fanfare, it slouched onto the market. Retail sales, though never a major way of delivering operating systems to end users, were sluggish, with the operating system selling at a far slower rate than Windows 98 had done three years previously.

It faced tough competition from Microsoft's other operating systems. Windows 2000, released less than two years prior, had won plaudits with its marriage of Windows NT's traditional stability and security to creature comforts like USB support, reliable plug-and-play, and widespread driver support, and was widely adopted in businesses. For Windows 2000 users, Windows XP was only a minor update: it had a spruced up user interface with the brightly colored Luna theme, an updated Start menu, and lots of little bits and pieces like a firewall, UPnP, System Restore, and ClearType. Indeed, many professionals and, for want of a better term, nerds, were turned off by the Luna theme, with its detractors dismissing Windows XP as a Fisher-Price operating system.

The familiar Windows XP desktop with Luna theme

For home users using Windows 95-family operating systems, Windows XP had much more to offer, thanks to its substantially greater stability and security, especially once Service Pack 2 was released. But even there, users didn't leap immediately. Windows XP's hardware demands, though modest by today's standards, were steeper than those of the Windows 95 family, and in its early days at least, neither Windows XP's driver support nor performance could match those of its technologically inferior sibling. Gamers, in particular, were vocal in their criticism of Windows XP, and many vowed to stick with Windows 98SE indefinitely.

In the first year of Windows XP's availability, Microsoft had to work to persuade even enterprises to ditch Windows 95, in spite of its near complete unsuitability to enterprise computing.

In the end, none of the objections mattered. Time made Windows XP a success. Computers got faster, rendering its hardware demands first ubiquitous, and then later in its life, almost laughable. Driver support grew, and driver performance improved. Instead of being a heavyweight alternative to use if you had the resources and you could be sure that all your hardware and software would work with it, it became the obvious choice of system software. The explosion in Internet usage, and the focus on system security, made continued use of the Windows 95 family untenable. Windows XP was therefore the only choice for most desktop users, and within a few years of its release, most Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4, and Windows 2000 users had made the switch.

The long life of Windows XP

Over the course of its life, Microsoft made Windows XP a much better operating system. Service Pack 2, released in 2004, was a major overhaul of the operating system. It made the software better able to handle modern systems, with improved WiFi support and a native Bluetooth stack, and made it far more secure. The firewall was enabled by default, the bundled Internet Explorer 6 gained the "gold bar" popup blocker and ActiveX security feature, and for hardware that supported it, Data Execution Protection made it more difficult to exploit software flaws.

Microsoft also produced a number of variants of the base operating system. The two major ones were Windows XP Media Center Edition and Windows XP Tablet Edition. These were efforts to push Windows into new kinds of market—the TV-connected home theater PC, and the pen-powered tablet—though neither met with any great commercial success, and for Windows Vista, their features were rolled into the core product rather than shipping as standalone versions.

But in many ways, the thing that cemented Windows XP's status wasn't Windows XP itself: it was the lack of any successor. Microsoft's Longhorn project, an ambitious plan to radically rework Windows, with an all-new set of APIs and a database-like filesystem, was delayed and ultimately abandoned entirely. Windows Vista, a massively scaled back, more conservative release, eventually arrived in 2006, but by this time Windows XP had become so dominant that users, particularly business users, didn't want a new operating system. That Windows Vista had trouble in its early days, thanks to its steeper hardware demands, its polarizing appearance, and display driver issues—mirroring, in many ways, Windows XP's own introduction—just served to entrench Windows XP further. Business users stuck with Windows XP, and Windows Vista struggled to ever make a serious dent in its predecessor's market share, peaking at just 19 percent in the final days before Windows 7's release.

Had Windows Longhorn been more successful, and had Windows Vista arrived sooner, Windows XP's market share dominance would never have been achieved. Windows 7, though well-received and widely liked, will be lucky to hit 50 percent market share before its replacement, Windows 8, hits the market (assuming Microsoft manages to avoid any development disasters). With a new operating system coming out every two to three years, which is Microsoft's plan, there simply isn't enough time to amass that much market share.

Long in the tooth it may be, but Windows XP still basically works. Regardless of the circumstances that led to its dominance and longevity, the fact that it remains usable so long after release is remarkable. Windows XP was robust enough, modern enough, well-rounded enough, and usable enough to support this extended life. Not only was Windows XP the first (and only) PC operating system that lasted ten years: it was the first PC operating system that was good enough to last ten years. Windows 98 didn't have the security or stability; Windows 2000 didn't have the security or comfort; Mac OS X 10.1 didn't have the performance, the richness of APIs, or the hardware support.

The downside of longevity

As much as businesses have enjoyed the ability to standardize on one operating system for a decade, the effect of Windows XP's long life and massive market share has its downsides. Windows XP is today a very tired platform, one that hasn't kept up with modern developments. Installing it onto systems with new RAID or SATA controllers is a miserable experience. Installing it on systems without optical drives is also troublesome. Though Service Pack 2 took steps to improve security, it still falls a long way short of Windows Vista and Windows 7 in that regard, thanks to newer features such as address space layout randomization and User Account Control. The technology it uses is dated; Windows 7 and Mac OS X both use GPUs' powerful 3D capabilities to accelerate their user interfaces (to a greater or lesser extent). Windows XP does not. Windows XP also lacks a true 64-bit version; though a Windows XP for x86-64 processors was released, it was actually a rebranded version of Windows Server 2003, a decision which caused various compatibility issues. Windows Vista and Windows 7, in contrast, both have mainstream, well-supported 64-bit versions.

New versions of Windows offer value to developers, too. Direct3D 10, for example, only supports Windows Vista and Windows 7; it's not available on Windows XP. The continued widespread usage of the old operating system makes it much harder for developers to depend on these new features: every time they do, they rule out the ability to sell to half of all current Windows users, and that's a bitter pill to swallow. More aggressive migration away from Windows XP would enable the development of better third-party applications.

Given current trends, Windows 7 will overtake XP within the next year, with many businesses now moving away from the decade-old OS in earnest. Not all—there are still companies and governments rolling out Windows XP on new hardware—but the tide has turned. Windows XP, with its weaker security and inferior support for modern hardware, is now becoming a liability; Windows 7 is good enough for business and an eminently worthy successor, in a way that Windows Vista was never felt to be.

Nonetheless, it will be several years before developers and administrators can put Windows XP behind them. Its support is due to end on April 8th, 2014, and while that date is still some years off, it's all but inevitable that there will be organizations still using the operating system right up to the cut-off. Beyond the support cut-off, companies will still be allowed to downgrade their volume licenses, but they won't receive any further security patches if they do.

When Microsoft wanted to stop OEM preinstallations of Windows XP in 2007, there was a widespread backlash against the decision. It wouldn't be surprising to see a campaign of some kind to extend support for the operating system, and no doubt there will be some companies claiming that they somehow didn't have enough time to phase out Windows XP. Redmond did extend the length of time that OEMs could ship systems with Windows XP preinstalled in response to customer demands, but it's hard to see the company lengthening the operating system's support period beyond the cut-off.

Ten years is a good run for any operating system, but it really is time to move on. Windows 7 is more than just a solid replacement: it is a better piece of software, and it's a much better match for the software and hardware of today. Being usable for ten years is quite an achievement, but the stagnation it caused hurts, and is causing increased costs for administrators and developers alike. As incredible as Windows XP's longevity has been, it's a one-off. Several factors—the 32-bit transition, the Longhorn fiasco, even the lack of competition resulting from Apple's own Mac OS X transition—conspired to make Windows XP's position in the market unique. We should not want this situation to recur: Windows XP needs to be not only the first ten-year operating system; it also needs to be the last.

252 Reader Comments

Anyway,if XP is still so widely used today, I wonder how many enterprises will opt in to Custom Support for XP in 2014 that as mentioned before on Ars costs $200,000 for the first year and increases every year thereafter.

Operating Systems have always been a case of "thank god the new version is less bad than the old version" rather than "Ooh look at these great new features."

In addition to that, the realization that it is in fact less bad than the old version usually takes people a while. Sometimes it takes a few patches to make it a reality, even.

To give an example, when I started my old job in 2003 it was still running on Windows 98 -- while I had switched to XP immediately on my personal machine. The owner insisting that he would run 98 forever.

It took me bringing my XP box from home in to show him that it was indeed better. I don't even remember at this point what features I sold him on exactly.

When I left that job he was insisting they'd stay on XP forever, and today they still have not moved to Win7.

I think for home users it's more of a situation of using whatever came with the computer and not finding a compelling reason to shell out $80 or more for Windows 7.

As far as not having another 10 year OS. I guess that really depends on how you define an OS.

Are Windows Vista and Windows 7 really more different than XP and XP SP3? Will Windows 8 be aside from shoving a tablet interface down everyone's throats?

To me as a user, I feel like OS X 10.6 and OS X 10.7 are more different than Vista and 7, at least as far as impacting how I use my computer daily. (I have a gaming machine running Windows and my work laptop runs OS X.)

I tend to upgrade my OS whenever a new version is available, but that's because I'm a developer and interested in new technology released by major companies just because it's new and interesting.

Windows 7 may be another XP, though, due to the Metro kudzu completely swallowing up the Microsoft garden. Whether you like the idea of the WP7 interface on a desktop/laptop or not, you have to acknowledge that it is a huge paradigm shift. Much bigger than Vista. Do you really think people are going to embrace this radical change that completely throws away all the skills and habits they have developed in how they use their computers?

Then beyond that, you have to figure out if it really is better for the way people use their computers every day. Or whether Microsoft has become a snake turned in on itself and pushing Metro despite it so far failing on platforms that it is supposedly ideally suited for (Zune and WP7.) Continuing to push it not only into tablets but onto desktops and laptops seems like folly to me.

I'm definitely not a computer geek; just a home user. I have XP on my desktop box, bought in '06 or '07. Got it installed instead of the Vista alternative then available, over concerns with Vista's stability at the time and have never regretted that choice. XP has been completely stable and usable for my limited needs (browsing, email, simple productivity needs and a few games). I haven't had to do a clean install since I purchased good security software with sandboxing for the browser. I will definitely upgrade to a newer version, probably Win7, when I NEED to, but I frankly don't look forward to it. As a retiree with limited finances I don't enjoy spending the hundreds of $ for a new OS or spending hours/days tweeking it to run the way I want or getting used to a new UI or finding out that some of my older software doesn't run on the new OS or discovering that some features I was used to using are missing or obfuscated in the new UI. Simply finding things in a new menu system or UI can be completely annoying.Time and money are the issues. I'd love to install a newer OS that utilizes this machine's hardware more effectively but simply don't want the hassle or cost of the process. Simply, XP does what I need it to do without costing me another dime or minute of wasted time. I suspect many other people feel the same way.As an illustration of the philosophy of people with limited finances, when I buy a new car I expect it to last, relatively trouble free, for 10 years, with good maintenance, much longer. This is a huge money saver. The same expectation is somewhat present when buying any item, computer or otherwise.XP has met that expectation eminently for many of us.

Last year I was on MS Tech Support for a while and got a call from a norwegian who wanted help with Windows 98. A home user. It was kinda sad.

Most users have no reason to run XP on modern machines. I have a laptop that should run XP (Dell D610, Windows 7 runs smooth but I use the license on the desktop and I'm trying my darnest to stay to the license agreements) though.

I am not sure which world you are living in, but in the real world, the vast majority of people need MS Office. It is only recently that reasonable alternatives have arrived, but even they won't suffice for a vast majority of people.

Even if LibreOffice was the standard everyone would still run Windows and OS X.

Linux still isn't fail-safe enough. Dumping a user into the command line because the graphics driver failed is unacceptable. You can't leave Grandma on a Linux distro but you can give her an Android tablet.

I am not sure which world you are living in, but in the real world, the vast majority of people need MS Office. It is only recently that reasonable alternatives have arrived, but even they won't suffice for a vast majority of people.

Even if LibreOffice was the standard everyone would still run Windows and OS X.

Linux still isn't fail-safe enough. Dumping a user into the command line because the graphics driver failed is unacceptable. You can't leave Grandma on a Linux distro but you can give her an Android tablet.

True true. In some cases the BSOD's are a blessing. Heck, error messeges in general are awesome.

I use XP everyday....thanks to my company's IT dept. Things aren't changing for a while either from what I hear. Maybe, and I hear it's just a maybe, next year (2012), we'll see just the start of a slow and graduated rollout of Win7. LOL.

That being said. I don't particularly feel that using XP is leaving me out in the cold much. I have Win7 at home too, it lives in relative harmony with my XP machines, and I use both OS' interchangeably without much hassle. I have relatively up to date hardware (3-4 years old) on the system I use the most, and there isn't really any software I'm locked out of.

Same, except I don't see any hope of an upgrade in the near future. My computer is the power house of my department and it only has 1 GB of RAM. Heck, it's bad enough using the 2007 Office suite (of course they'd upgrade *that*) without putting a modern OS on technologically ancient computers. Oh, the joys of working in the non-profit industry...

Having said that, XP has aged pretty well. I don't think I've ever encountered a problem where XP was holding me back. Honestly, I don't see why we should have to get brand new operating systems every few years. Why not just give major updates to old ones? Yeah, they get stagnant if you *never* change them but it's annoying to hear people say stuff like "but if I wait a little longer, the next one will come out, I should wait for that."

I just got a wonderful new HP laptop running XP for work. Between it and Louts Notes, the tech in my silently weeps at the tyranny of enterprise.

That has to be one of the worst nightmares of a computer user: Win XP + Lotus Notes. I say this after using Win 7 since its release, and, eventough I still use XP at work, there is no comparison on how much more productive I can be in Win 7.

Plus, XP has been a dead OS for gamers since 2009. Pretty much every new card out is optimized for DX11, which makes popping for example a GTX580 into an XP system like making rotary pulse calls with an Android phone.

While the benefits of DX11 can't be argued with...it's hardly a must. Most of these DX11 titles can be played (in XP) in DX9 mode and look 90% or more as good. Often the differences are so subtle, you don't even notice.

I am not sure which world you are living in, but in the real world, the vast majority of people need MS Office. It is only recently that reasonable alternatives have arrived, but even they won't suffice for a vast majority of people.

Even if LibreOffice was the standard everyone would still run Windows and OS X.

Linux still isn't fail-safe enough. Dumping a user into the command line because the graphics driver failed is unacceptable. You can't leave Grandma on a Linux distro but you can give her an Android tablet.

True true. In some cases the BSOD's are a blessing. Heck, error messeges in general are awesome.

I am thinking that lynx or another text-mode browser should be installed by default by distros exactly for that reason. Of course it would not help the average user without more detailed error messages, but it would still help quite a bit.

My home server sits in the basement running XP - and exists to do simple jobs - backup and file server. I've got extra IDE 250 Gb HD's ready to plug in if they die. I'll run it through the expire date in 2014, then I'll replace it with my current 2007 Vista office build and then only to keep the Microsoft Security Essentials up-to-date.

For home business users, it's about longevity. I'm more concerned about keeping my power supply alive than which OS is running. I happy about running Seasonic and XP. Cheap, efficient, productive, long-lasting.

I am thinking that lynx or another text-mode browser should be installed by default by distros exactly for that reason. Of course it would not help the average user without more detailed error messages, but it would still help quite a bit.

Most distros that I've encountered are set up to restart X in the event that it crashes for some reason. Granted you get returned to the login screen (since everything using X dies when X does) but I haven't had a system just dump me at the console in a long time.

Most crash events like that usually aren't followed by anything helpful though, as the drivers causing most crashes tend to be the closed Nvidia or AMD drivers.

I only use Windows for games at work, and XP is still good enough for the games I play. It was never a very good, as in user-friendly OS but it certainly isn't bad either. My parents run Win7 and that is also OK. I think I will wait until I need Win7 or -8 for a new game I want to play before I change to a new Windows OS.

Well if I was'nt running a Mac, which I have been since 2007 after XP died on me after so many other piece of junk Microsoft built since I first jumped on computer in 1995 with that virus that Microsoft called a OS, I's have to say that XP was Microsofts best piece of junk that I ran up until it died.

People won't leave XP until three years after the patches stop coming for one reason. The greedy people in Redmond. Apple can sell a OS for 30 bucks but MS has to charge you a arm and a legs and your first born for junk because Redmond has to keep Bill Gates the richest person in the world. Can't have anyone else take the top spot and then there the egocentric Baller with his 1.8 billion dollars that he's squirrelled away. Can't have him lowering his standards like people that run Microsofts junk.

Windows 98 didn't have the security or stability; Windows 2000 didn't have the security or comfort;

Windows 2000 didn't have the security? That's not what I remember at all, from my personal experience with Win2k Pro or from the news at the time, and it was eminently usable from a UI perspective. I think Win 2k could have been the true successor, except for its (huge) Achille's heel; gaming compatibility.

Windows 98 didn't have the security or stability; Windows 2000 didn't have the security or comfort;

Windows 2000 didn't have the security? That's not what I remember at all, from my personal experience with Win2k Pro or from the news at the time, and it was eminently usable from a UI perspective. I think Win 2k could have been the true successor, except for its (huge) Achille's heel; gaming compatibility.

Windows 2000 was securable, but still lacked arguable necessities like a firewall.

Used Win XP for 'bout 4 years. Was a bit hesitant to jump onto Vista for a couple months but then I did and it was a breeze, the constant virus issues were gone. Used it for a good 1.5 years and laughed at XP users hating on Vista (when it considered hip to hate on VIsta). The OS simply rocked and was solid.

Then came win7. It was a welcome improvement and soo much better. I think I'm going to keep this when win8 is out and decide if i need to jump or not. MS hasn't disappointed me in years. Now only if they had reasonable, realistic license pricing for low-income countries, I'd actually buy one of the licenses.

Vista actually was terrible...I upgraded my mom's computer from vista to 7 and it literally was 2-3x faster

Windows 98 didn't have the security or stability; Windows 2000 didn't have the security or comfort;

Windows 2000 didn't have the security? That's not what I remember at all, from my personal experience with Win2k Pro or from the news at the time, and it was eminently usable from a UI perspective. I think Win 2k could have been the true successor, except for its (huge) Achille's heel; gaming compatibility.

Windows 2000 was securable, but still lacked arguable necessities like a firewall.

Not to mention XP SP2 increased security too by for example enabling the firewall by default.

Used Win XP for 'bout 4 years. Was a bit hesitant to jump onto Vista for a couple months but then I did and it was a breeze, the constant virus issues were gone. Used it for a good 1.5 years and laughed at XP users hating on Vista (when it considered hip to hate on VIsta). The OS simply rocked and was solid.

Then came win7. It was a welcome improvement and soo much better. I think I'm going to keep this when win8 is out and decide if i need to jump or not. MS hasn't disappointed me in years. Now only if they had reasonable, realistic license pricing for low-income countries, I'd actually buy one of the licenses.

Vista actually was terrible...I upgraded my mom's computer from vista to 7 and it literally was 2-3x faster

Particularly nice for me was the ability to use Aero and the DWM without it consuming a lot of system memory.

While the benefits of DX11 can't be argued with...it's hardly a must. Most of these DX11 titles can be played (in XP) in DX9 mode and look 90% or more as good. Often the differences are so subtle, you don't even notice.

So XP is not dead as a gaming OS, not even close.

The number of speed improvements that have been coded into software to take advantage of DX 10 and 11 are not insignificant. For example, World of Warcraft didn't make any DX10 changes, but did add extra DX11 bits. Leaving all your settings the same and turning on DX11 in the icon (prior to the DX11 option being added to the graphics section) gave a 30% frame rate boost. I'm less worried about the little bits of fluff added here and there ("ooh more particle effects!!"), but big bumps like that are very nice

"We should not want this situation to recur: Windows XP needs to be not only the first ten-year operating system; it also needs to be the last."

It feels like you completely missed the point.

Stability.Matters.

In today's fast-paced, constantly iterating (not innovating, as they claim) world, "good enough" is an alien concept, a foreign language. Yet we reached "good enough" ten years ago and it shows no signs of ever going away.

I am convinced Win 7 will be a 10 year OS. As it stands so far, Win 8 requires fundamental changes in how users interact with a desktop computer. (Swiping with a mouse? Seriously? RSI much?) These changes, if they stick, will require new hardware types and getting over the "change" hump -- and the enterprise is the last place you are going to see buy $90 touch mouses for every user so they can stumble through a touch interface on a desktop.

The second to last place is the average user who wants to look at cat videos on the internet and read email, and they only upgrade their computers every 5 or 6 years anyway. When they do, it's just as likely to be to an Android or iOS device that does what they need for much less money.

Well, some people like Steve Gibson from Gibson Research (they do the Shields Up website along with Spin-right disk utilities) are hanging on to XP for dear life. He keeps trumpeting on his "Security Now" podcast how XP still has like 5 years left on it's service and he refuses to upgrade to Windows 7 on his main computers. Reminds me of the people that used to (and probably still do) hang on to DOS for as long as they could because "dag-nabit, I don't need no fancy windows and mouses".

Just like people still rode horse and buggies when automobiles were taking over. Very quaint. I wanna take pictures of people still using XP..probably on CRT monitors too.

Well if I was'nt running a Mac, which I have been since 2007 after XP died on me after so many other piece of junk Microsoft built since I first jumped on computer in 1995 with that virus that Microsoft called a OS, I's have to say that XP was Microsofts best piece of junk that I ran up until it died.

People won't leave XP until three years after the patches stop coming for one reason. The greedy people in Redmond. Apple can sell a OS for 30 bucks but MS has to charge you a arm and a legs and your first born for junk because Redmond has to keep Bill Gates the richest person in the world. Can't have anyone else take the top spot and then there the egocentric Baller with his 1.8 billion dollars that he's squirrelled away. Can't have him lowering his standards like people that run Microsofts junk.

What I just don't like is instead of changing the core of the OS to add new features, they have to go in and completely overhaul everything. Is Linux 3.0 the phoenix from a scrapped 2.6? Is OSX 10.7 a paradigm shift from 10.6?

No, they're not. You can move from one to the next and, barring major problems or incompatibility, not notice any change looking from the top down.

But what does XP share with Vista? Or 7? Or 8? An XP 2.0 would have been much better than reinventing the wheel every release. If Microsoft would just change the engine and leave the chassis alone, I'd be a much happier camper.

Til then, you can have my XP when I can no longer buy parts that support it...(likely my next system build, as it were, sadly, whenever that happens to be.)

I can understand some businesses stuck in XP due to various automation and medical devices and such, but seriously, anyone, especially those posting on Ars still using XP by choice...

I'm not sure what to say.

I'm still using XP Pro SP3 on my main machine at home right now. Honestly it doesn't play games anymore (though that might change when Half Life 3 comes out), and the hardest work it sees is video editing. Part of the reason for not needing Win 7 is the lack or hardware. It only has 2 gigs of memory, which when running XP is more than enough for everything I do. There are times when having 4+ and being on a 64 bit OS would help make things faster, but XP has been rock solid so I can't complain.

Besides when a lot of the applications I use are command line driven, single threaded (dual at best) then having a top of the line 8 core cpu with 16+ gigs of ram is really just a waste.

I do have a laptop running Win 7 64 bit. Over all I like Windows 7, but I despise the Vista/7 start menu, so I run the Classic Shell program to give it that 2000 look (the same configuration that I use on my XP machine).If I have a machine running Windows 8 and I can put Classic Shell on it I'm sure I will. If I wanted to type out commands I'd be using linux.

I only use Windows for games at work, and XP is still good enough for the games I play. It was never a very good, as in user-friendly OS but it certainly isn't bad either. My parents run Win7 and that is also OK. I think I will wait until I need Win7 or -8 for a new game I want to play before I change to a new Windows OS.

Battlefield 3? Skyrim? DirectX11 is also more efficient so you can get better FPS in the same game on it's DX11 codepath with the same settings

The article mentions Bluetooth support - well, for certain kinds of devices. Installing most bluetooth devices was always horrible on XP, the problem of XP silently replacing any bluetooth stack you installed with its own stack - not supporting the profile you need - is well documented. I suspect that behaviour was intentional and Bluetooth was not something MS wanted to encourage.

Still it was solid and once the hardware caught up I used it for years and got to like it. I still use XP VMs for embedded and retro gaming. What followed has never appealed.

Windows XP's longevity is truly remarkable. The article makes a good point in that the strong push towards internet-connected PC's and internet security made running all pre-XP Microsoft desktop OS'es untenable after a few years, especially after Windows XP SP2 released with beefier security.

I personally jumped ship to Vista as soon as I could, because after the stability issues were ironed out within the first 6 months, it was a much smoother, better PC experience than XP (long boot times notwithstanding). Windows 7, which was essentially just a large service pack of Vista sold as a new OS (think OS X releases), was a smoother, more refined Vista.

I believe that Windows 7 is "the new XP", and it will probably still command well over 10% of the desktop market in 5+ years. I believe that for non-touch screen PC's, Windows 7 will be the gold standard for years to come, and that is the vast majority of buisness PC's and home PC's. New builds of Windows 7 boot faster than XP, and run smoother with fewer hiccups. The GPU-accelerated desktop really does run smoother than the CPU driven ones of the past.

Nothing will approach XP's 10-year run, most of that as the dominant desktop OS. The lines between desktop and laptop have been blurred lately as well; Windows 7 and Mac OS X are considered "desktop" OS'es even when they run on laptops. There is a newfound emphasis on mobile OS'es like never before today. More and more people will use Tablet devices as media consumption devices - to surf the net, watch videos, etc. More and more people use computers *while watching TV; it's a trend that is only increasing, and smartphones and tablets make this even easier.----------

Because Windows 8's "Metro" UI is so touch-focused, I could see it taking off in school usage, laptops, and, of course, tablets in the 201x decade. It will be interesting to see how Windows 8 tablets run when the OS first launches in late 2012; tablet hardware is at least an order of magnitude slower than desktop hardware. Within a few years of Windows 8's launch, however, there may be no perceptible performance difference between Tablet and desktop/laptop usage.

But what does XP share with Vista? Or 7? Or 8? An XP 2.0 would have been much better than reinventing the wheel every release. If Microsoft would just change the engine and leave the chassis alone, I'd be a much happier camper.

A TON of components are common (and even more when you count compatible ones) between XP and Vista. Saying otherwise only shows your own ignorance of it. They add a lot of visible features between releases but the core of the operating system is still based on NT

"With a new operating system coming out every two to three years, which is Microsoft's plan, there simply isn't enough time to amass that much market share."

Does anyone else find this absurd? If you've ever been involved in enterprise OS upgrades you know this won't fly.

"Windows XP needs to be not only the first ten-year operating system; it also needs to be the last."

10 years may be too long, but 3 years is way too short. They should on finding the sweet spot and release a robust well developed and tested product (Windows 7) instead of a hacked up upgrade (Vista, Windows 98).

If MS can keep XP from supporting USB 3.0, Thunderbolt (?), and all the other spiffy advances coming out, then folks will be forced to move on.

Ironically, there's no killer software app that folks need to do (unless it's PC gaming) to cause them to migrate.

But, you tell them they can download their 50gb MP3's to their iPod 500% faster using some new cable technology, and they'll be all over buying a new computer that comes with 7 or 8, thus tossing their old XP comp on the curb for trash pickup. (To which I then notice it on my way to work, and pick it up to take it home to fiddle with... )

EDIT: MS could have killed XP off earlier if they prevented it from supporting multi-core processors. Oops...missed the bus on that one, MS.

Don't hold your breath. Nothing that I have seen in Win 8 if enticing me to spend my hard earned bucks on it. As a matter of fact, I still don't see a lot of businesses flocking away from Win XP. In this period of economic hard times, most businesses will retain the XP OS as long as their software will operate it.

It's not that enterprises are terrified by change, it's that they're terrified by cost.

Unless you're in Sales, it's a serious challenge to go back to the business and ask them to rewrite half the intranet apps, or upgrade the ERP, or whatever, because you want to change the OS. The muckity-mucks that approve budgets, both in IT and in the business, are not going to add a zero to the wrong side of a desktop rollout, certainly not because they themselves signed off on some shoddy piece of crap nearly a decade ago, never mind getting extra resources for QA and training.

And this was the case in the good old days. Now? In the era of lowered (sales) expectations? Hell, no.

This is how we get things like ThinApp and virtual XP mode running IE6 for some crufty intranet webapp developed by either the lowest bidder.

Well you can bandaid it for only so long. At some point apps are going to have to be rewritten. I try to make my clients aware that nothing lasts forever and it's better to get ahead of trends than to be drudge to the bottom of the wave because you keep your head in the sand.

Feels like Windows 7 is becoming the new XP. I've never been quick to upgrade but when I finally do I try to look at the changes as objectively as I can. Win 98 did feel completely inferior to XP even before I got used to the changes, same with Win7 over XP. Win8 preview felt like a complete disaster even after I spent quite a bit of time trying to get used to it, it may be just a preview but the direction they seem to be taking is completely detatched from the way I use my computer (you know, with mouse+keyboard).

Maybe if everyone was using touchscreens it could work but as long as the operating system is almost as expensive as a tablet/smartphone you'd expect to get an product optimized for the most common interface.

Do they honestly believe ppl will switch from Win7 when they had so much trouble switching from XP? This time they can't entice gamers with DirectX upgrades like with Vista either...

It's not that enterprises are terrified by change, it's that they're terrified by cost.

Unless you're in Sales, it's a serious challenge to go back to the business and ask them to rewrite half the intranet apps, or upgrade the ERP, or whatever, because you want to change the OS. The muckity-mucks that approve budgets, both in IT and in the business, are not going to add a zero to the wrong side of a desktop rollout, certainly not because they themselves signed off on some shoddy piece of crap nearly a decade ago, never mind getting extra resources for QA and training.

And this was the case in the good old days. Now? In the era of lowered (sales) expectations? Hell, no.

This is how we get things like ThinApp and virtual XP mode running IE6 for some crufty intranet webapp developed by either the lowest bidder.

Well you can bandaid it for only so long. At some point apps are going to have to be rewritten. I try to make my clients aware that nothing lasts forever and it's better to get ahead of trends than to be drudge to the bottom of the wave because you keep your head in the sand.

This will be the great irony of the future.

50 years from now, IT will be running the latest and greatest hardware/software ... just to virtualize a bunch of old XP environments to run crufty software businesses are too tight to update. That'd be hilarious...and sad.